Ratatouille: An Epilogue
by Chaotic Neutralist
Summary: Because Disney doesn't understand France, and seriously, food safety is important. Lovecraft Lite-inspired.


**Ratatouille: An Epilogue**

"Remy? Do you need any help in here?" Alfredo, the lost Weasley brother, peers into the bistro's kitchen, glancing around in search of his furry friend. His eyes fall at last on Remy's small figure bent over some cookbooks on a prep station in the corner. "There you are! Are you thinking about adding something to the menu?"

Remy nods and gestures to a certain recipe, snickering.

"...I didn't choose the name, okay?" Alfredo crosses his arms, glaring down on the small, smug rat. So his name is Alfredo Linguini. Ha. Ha. Ha. Very funny, rat. You weren't the one that put up with that same old joke throughout all of your years of schooling, so kindly shut up now.

Remy makes a few indecipherable gestures with his paws that vaguely resemble French Sign Language blended with several dashes of interpretive dance and perhaps just a hint of semaphore. Alfredo tilts his head, scowling.

"I know I could, but changing your name isn't nearly as easy as it seems. Trust me, I've tried." Alfredo sighs, running a hand through his ginger rat's nest, and asks, "Is Colette in yet?"

Before Remy can mime a reply, a toque blanche slowly peeks up over the edge of a counter, and a pair of beady eyes dart back and forth. Alfredo blinks several times, pinches himself, and asks, "Colette? Were you...hiding in the cabinet?"

"Oui." Colette rises to her full height, dusts herself off, and slowly cracks her knuckles one by one by one before beginning to slice ingredients for Remy's alfredo linguini.

"Okay, were you looking for something? I mean, the pantry is over there—"

"Oui," Colette interrupts, scowling at something in her grasp. It is long and brown and covered in flecks of green and blue like a faded globe—finely aged. She sets it down on a chopping board, tugs a large butcher's knife covered in a strange goo from a drawer, and stabs the strangely shaped rock.

"Wait, what...is that?" Alfredo asks, covering his mouth in disgust. Remy also instinctively recoils, bounding across the countertops and leaping into Alfredo's hair. He hisses, trembling and sweating from each and every orifice.

"Baguette." Colette glances up, a dark twinkle in her eye, before going back to slamming the cleaver against the thing that is most definitely not a baguette. It has too many tentacles to be any form of bread, and it makes an odd growling noise when Colette attempts to cut into its meaty flesh.

"I don't know. It looks kinda dusty. That thing must've been down there for a while…" Alfredo strokes his chin, and Remy is locked in a staring contest with the baguette's eye. He wants to look away, but for some reason, he just can't stop staring. Why can't he stop staring? He doesn't want to look anymore. His eyes, they burn. Please send help.

"Oui," Colette replies, not noticing Remy's frantic game of charades. Instead, she finally manages to wedge her knife into its body, and the baguette is now screaming curses in an ancient Mesopotamian language reserved solely for divine entities. It does this via telepathy, since the baguette distinctly lacks lips, a mouth, teeth, a tongue, vocal cords, or any physical construct that could potentially help it communicate.

"Is it still any good?" Alfredo eyes the baguette, uncertain. It doesn't look very fresh, and here at Bistro Ratatouille, he feels an obligation to hold the quality of his ingredients to a higher standard given the nature of the head chef.

"Oui," Colette assures him with an angelic smile, as if God himself had personally kicked her out of heaven. Alfredo swoons. Oh, Colette, and that sexy, sexy demonic purple aura of hers...He rates her two stars, one for each of his eyes. Remy is still locked in the baguette's paralyzing gaze.

"And you're sure that's...uh, what's that called again?" Alfredo asks, scratching the side of his head. Yeah, he's not the sharpest knife in the block.

"Baguette." Colette beheads the baguette in one swift blow, and the screaming stops. Remy lets out a sigh of relief, sagging into Alfredo's hair and wiping his tearful eyes. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, free at last!

"Right, that." Alfredo takes a deep breath. "You're sure that's a baguette?"

"Oui." Colette deveins the baguette in one smooth stroke, her skill evident in the fluidity of her movements. This is the true ability of someone that once went to a prestigious culinary school, spending thousands upon thousands of euros on tuition each year and eventually partnering in a restaurant of her own.

"Well, it isn't as if we could possibly be any worse than that potted meat factory down the road. Did you hear they actually got busted for fecal contamination their products?" Alfredo shakes his head in disapproval, and Remy is sent flying across the room from the motion, falling into a boiling pot on the stove.

Chef Remy, you were dear to us and will be sorely missed, but I am sorry: you have been boiled.

"Oui." Colette slices the baguette, glazing each piece with a special house blend of olive oil and garlic while blatantly ignoring the pus pooling on the table.

"It's ridiculous what the food industry can get away with these days." Alfredo pauses, a romantic candle flickering over his head instead of a proper light bulb, because Alfredo is not actually capable of intelligent thought. "Speaking of which, we have a food inspector visiting this afternoon."

"...Oui?" Colette freezes, her knife held upright and her eyes bulging. She holds the baguette by the neck, its carcass squirming with the twitching throes of afterlife. She discards the head in a trash can before placing the slices of baguette on a tray and setting them to bake until crispier than a cremated corpse.

"So remember to give him today's special." Alfredo grins and gives her a horribly American and thus culturally out of place thumbs up.

"Baguette?" Colette asks, her smile widening to the point where her face is mildly uncanny and slightly unsettling to look at.

"Baguette," Alfredo confirm, winks, and exits to the dining area, leaving Colette to wait for the baguette to slowly burn in the raging fires of hell's kitchen.


End file.
